Well, at least I'm not a day late this time. My fall allergies would much rather I be curled up in a sniffly ball dosed with antihistamine, but here I am!

You know, even though it does make me nervous to come and put up chapters more weeks than it doesn't (yay social awkwardness anxiety!), it's always worth it. These two stories thus far have become my most read, most bookmarked, most EVERYTHING ever, at least on AO3. And it's not just about count of views – it's about the comments, full of joy and support and interest and good ideas and thoughtful questions and angles I missed. It's humbling and amazing. Makes all the posting scariness worth it.

(I only hope that when I start taking some genuinely wild turns way off of the beaten path that so many of you stick with me into the unknown. It's going to be a hell of a ride!)

The song for tonight is "Superhero" by Simon Curtis.

Enjoy!

Chapter 8: Mission On Lock

Two weeks after Peter's birthday, the Avengers went on their first mission together since the Chitauri invasion.

All things considered, Steve was just as glad that this was a comparatively easy warm-up into being a team again. The Hydra base they decided to hit was located in Nebraska — under a corn field, because of course it was. Their information suggested it was still active, which meant there were members of Hydra ready to defend it when they showed up.

The information they had on the fifty or so Hydra soldiers suggested they were armed with standard weaponry, nothing Steve recognized as the energy weapons he'd hated before he went into the ice, but what they lacked in firepower, they were making up by being really stubborn about it.

"Anybody got eyes on the sniper?" Steve yelled into his comm as he continued to provide cover for Black Widow while they inched closer to the bunker's entrance disguised as a rusted piece of farm equipment. There were three different mounted guns defending the front door, and one legitimately skilled sniper someplace else taking shots with worrying accuracy.

"I've got an angle on him, but no visual," Hawkeye reported. "Also, this sucks." He was probably the most annoyed at having to fight out in the middle of a corn field where there was no high ground to speak of, no tall-enough trees within a mile, and almost no cover unless you counted the corn stalks (which nobody did).

"Seconded," Falcon said. "I feel like I'm in a duck hunt and I'm the duck."

Falcon and Iron Man were both in the air — Thor had opted to stay back at the Quinjet with Banner just in case — but with the near-constant weapons fire only Iron Man could get close to their goal. He, at least, had bullet-proof armor covering his whole body.

"I told you I could make you a better suit," Iron Man said, "but for some reason you like letting your fleshy bits hang out. Bad call, bird boy."

"Can we focus?" Steve asked, knowing that the most he could hope for was a 'maybe.'

"Cap, I can clear you a path as soon as you give me the okay to go all wrecking ball on their front door," Iron Man said.

Steve had been trying to avoid that. He knew that door would be a choke-point, and the fact that they hadn't seen energy weapons yet didn't mean there weren't any no matter what the intel said. Sending Iron Man in without any immediate backup was not an ideal plan. Especially in his first real fight in more than a year and a half.

Black Widow looked up at him and shook her head. "At some point, you're going to have to extend some trust here, Cap."

He hated that she was right.

"Fine." He glanced up to get an idea of where the others were. "Iron Man, take point. Black Widow and I will be right behind you. Falcon, you and Hawkeye get rid of that sniper before we get there."

"Finally!" Tony sounded way too happy about that.

Steve pushed to his feet, shield out, and started running straight for the entrance.

"Falcon, bank left and let that guy take another shot at you. I think I spotted him." Hawkeye paused. "Oh, and don't get hit."

"Not feeling the love here!" But Falcon did as Hawkeye asked. The shots rang out, following Falcon through the air.

But a moment later there was the whistle of an arrow — Steve was pretty sure only his enhanced ears caught it, but that was an advantage on their side — and then an explosion.

"Sniper's down," Hawkeye reported. "Falcon, you might want to make sure he stays that way."

"On it. Meet you on the doormat."

Overhead, the whine of Iron Man's repulsors was the only warning Steve got before Tony dropped down in front of all three mounted guns and blasted them apart, taking a few hits in the process. But he didn't exactly seem bothered, switching to a cutting laser for the last of the guns. Steve and Black Widow emerged from the corn in time to see Iron Man kick open the door himself and launch a little rocket of some kind into the darkened interior.

"Surprise!" Iron Man was definitely smiling.

Steve got his shield up in time to keep himself and Black Widow from being blinded by the flash from the explosion. "A little warning next time?"

Iron Man looked over his shoulder. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Argue later," Black Widow said. "Hydra base now."

"Thor, you're our escape route," Steve said. "If we need an exit, I'm counting on you to make us one."

"Have no fear, Captain," Thor said, his booming voice no less booming over the comms. "I shall keep a watch over your retreat."

"Thanks. Banner, you okay?"

"So far, so good."

"All right." Steve gestured for Iron Man to go ahead. "Well, we came all this way. Let's pay them a proper visit."

Iron Man was speaking to JARVIS which didn't come through the comms, but Steve could hear it from outside Tony's suit. He was momentarily envious of the heads-up display inside the Iron Man helmet that let Tony see the interior as JARVIS scanned and mapped it for him.

"Lots more unfriendlies ahead, Cap," Iron Man said. "No energy weapons yet."

"Keep us informed, preferably before we get fried," he replied.

The Iron Man suit actually gave a little salute and headed down the stairs into the base. Steve trusted JARVIS plenty, but he moved silently anyway, listening with all his might. He could already hear the groans and ragged breathing of the people Iron Man had taken down with the Stark version of a flash grenade. That was reassuring — as much as he wanted Hydra eradicated, he'd rather take the soldiers alive if possible.

Strategically, there was no telling who might be a gold mine of information, and he was obligated to bring anybody back to SHIELD that he could to help them get rid of Hydra once and for all.

Morally, Cap would rather not kill anybody he didn't have to kill. Not because he was adverse to it — he had been a soldier after all and killed plenty of people on the battlefield — but because he slept at night better when he could do so with a minimum of death on his conscience. It was one thing to kill a person in the heat of a fight. It was something else to remember the fight later and think about the ones he killed because it was faster than finding a way to incapacitate them. He could live with it, but it was easier when he didn't have to.

On a personal note, when it came to Hydra, Steve had a very different goal from SHIELD or even the Avengers team. He couldn't help but wonder if he would see Bucky again in one of these bunkers, and if he did, he desperately wanted to save him. And therefore any life he spared might be the one who could lead him to wherever Bucky had gone.

Steve wouldn't put unproven intel about Bucky before the mission or the team, but he couldn't help thinking about it as he stared into the long corridor of unconscious bodies.

Everyone not in a full suit of armor carried a pouch of thick restraints, so Steve and Black Widow quickly made sure the knocked out soldiers in the hall were fully immobilized and their weapons kicked away while Iron Man kept scanning.

The further they descended into the bunker, the more apparent it became to Steve that Hydra hadn't changed a whole lot since the early forties, at least in terms of their decorating. The bunker consisted of a lot of cement walls, square corners, and the Hydra symbol spaced out so that there was no place you could stand that you wouldn't see at least one somewhere. Beside him, Black Widow scoffed.

"Very cheerful. They're really into that depressed-repressed-functionally dead aesthetic, aren't they?"

"Nazis aren't exactly known for being open to the arts," Iron Man said. "At least the ones they don't commission." As if out of spite, he sent a repulsor blast at the nearest Hydra symbol on the wall, replacing it with cracked concrete and a scorch mark.

"Just don't bring down the ceiling," Steve said, sighing. He understood the impulse, but still.

At the first juncture that led away from the entrance, Iron Man paused.

"Heat signatures in both directions. Call it, Cap."

"Hawkeye, Falcon, where are you?"

"Just entering now," Falcon said. "Give us a minute to catch up."

"Okay. Iron Man, you go with Widow towards wherever JARVIS thinks we're more likely to find any computers or other technology. I'll take Hawkeye and Falcon the other way to clear it out."

"Don't get lost," Black Widow said, a faint smile on her face. She glanced back to where the other two were stepping over the restrained Hydra agents. "And try not to get them shot."

"Been shot enough for one lifetime already," Hawkeye said, winking at Black Widow. "Once by you."

"You deserved it."

"Probably." He smiled.

"All right. No more chatter. Remember we've got Thor if you need backup and Bruce if you really need backup. Everybody be careful."

Iron Man gestured for Black Widow to join him to the left and Steve headed down the right-hand corridor with Hawkeye and Falcon ready at his side. He knew Falcon was at a disadvantage being unable to fly, but he also knew that Falcon was both proficient at hand-to-hand and also a good shot with a handgun.

He was just thinking about what they would do if they came to another junction when a group of Hydra soldiers appeared in their path and then there was no more time to think.

-==OOO==-

In the end, the Avengers killed fifteen Hydra soldiers and captured twenty-nine. They also found some coded documents that had information about the supply runs for a handful of similar bases across North America. Supply lists were invaluable information because they told how many people to expect in a location and what kinds of activities might be happening there. Steve knew with this intel, they'd be able to hit the next Hydra base just as soon as the team had gotten some sleep and could mobilize again.

But, apparently, Fury had other ideas.

"This isn't the war, Rogers," he said as they finished their debrief from Tony's Tower while Fury remained in Washington DC. "We're not in a race to the finish line. I'm all for an aggressive schedule, but take the time for your team to rest and recharge first."

"Also," Tony said, "not to point out the obvious, but we've got a couple of walking mildly wounded. How about you give them time to get back to full strength?"

"Not all of us heal overnight," Nat added.

Steve felt his neck get warm. He'd always kind of forgotten about that. The mission always mattered, and in war, he was sort of used to having to make do with whatever supplies they could get, or whatever his team could handle. How many times had he led the Howling Commandos into a fight with still-healing stitches, compression bandages on their ankles, or mottled bruises still coloring their faces? Too many, honestly.

If Bucky were here, Steve was sure he'd say something about how Steve had always been a punk kid who never noticed having two black eyes and a busted lip even before he swelled up. Which was true — the hurts had never mattered. Even before the serum, he'd just shrugged it all off and done what needed doing. That was the only way he knew how to be. Pushing past limits was the only thing that had ever gotten Steve anywhere in life.

(God, he would take all the insults and reminders from their youth if it meant Bucky was here, and remembered himself. He would take all the hurts in the world to get his best friend back.)

But they were right — it wasn't fair for Steve to make everyone brush off their injuries just because he always did.

Nat had her arm in a sling because Bruce had made a sad face at her until she'd agreed to it in order to rest her elbow. Barton was lounging somewhere with ice all along some serious purpling bruises. And Sam had a bunch of stitches from being just a little too close to some flying shrapnel after a contained explosion. Nothing too serious, nothing they couldn't have put aside if the world needed them.

Suddenly Steve realized that the world didn't need them, not like that. Not right now. They could afford the luxury of rest for once.

"You're right," he said. "We'll take a little time to recover before we plan our next move."

"Good call, Cap." And Tony's tone was teasing, but there was real approval in his face.

Fury leaned closer to the camera. "Besides, you've got something else to do before you ship out again. Comes with the job description of every team leader."

Steve blinked, confused. He didn't like how Tony and Nat both immediately schooled their expressions so as not to give anything away.

"What's that?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Even Fury looked amused. "Well, the Avengers just took out a nest of terrorists hiding in America's bread basket. You didn't think you could get away without giving another press conference, did you?"

Only military discipline — and not wanting to look like a whiny kid in front of the team — kept Steve from banging his head on the table.

-==OOO==-

Two days later, in his Captain America uniform (without the cowl because "The people want to see your face!" Fury said), he sat at a table in front of two dozen members of the press taking questions and wishing he were literally anywhere else.

How did Tony even do this?

He pointed at one reporter raising her hand but not waving it like an eager kid in class.

"Captain Rogers," she said at once, "can you confirm the official roster of the Avengers at this time?"

He had permission to be vague about that, so he said, "We're a group of people with specific talents and skills, and while some of us are known by the public, others choose not to be. I will confirm that I am on the team, but I will let others speak for themselves."

He meant to turn to someone else, but she jumped into the gap. "What about Iron Man? Is Tony Stark an Avenger?"

Steve froze.

New questions were shouted at him from all sides.

"Can you confirm Tony Stark's whereabouts?"

"Iron Man has been rumored to have been seen in the city, but no one has any evidence that he is even alive. Do you have a comment?"

"If Iron Man is an Avenger, is Tony Stark still in the suit, or has he been replaced?"

"How do the other Avengers feel covering up Tony Stark's death at the hand of the Mandarin?"

Steve raised both hands. "Listen, everyone. I'm going to need you to calm down."

He was summarily ignored. More questions flowed.

"Iron Man went underground at the same time Hydra took over SHIELD. Is that just a coincidence, or was Tony Stark Hydra all along?"

"Why did Tony Stark go into hiding? Can you speak to the rumors about his part in the plot to assassinate the president?"

"Has Iron Man gone back to being the terrorist he was in the beginning?"

Steve scowled. "Okay, now you've gone too far." He stood up and raised his voice to be heard over the din, employing his full 'captain voice.' "If you don't settle down right now, this press conference is over and I won't promise to hold another one."

Most calmed down, but one person yelled from the back. "Why are you hiding the truth about Tony Stark?"

"Well." And Steve looked up to see Tony saunter into the room appearing relaxed and cool in his multi-thousand dollar suit and sunglasses. "Because it's not really his secret to tell, is it?"

The reporters exploded.

Steve could only blink as Tony made his way to the front, Happy at his side expertly keeping anyone from getting close enough to touch him. Tony looked almost exactly as he had when they first met in Berlin. The only difference that Steve could immediately see was that he had aggressively combed and styled (maybe gelled? who knew?) his facial hair into its famous shape — a shape it didn't take without a lot of work and product from what he could tell. Steve could understand that; Tony would look to the world as he always had, but if he wanted to go walk down a street in Queens, he just needed to fluff up the beard and he'd be back in hiding all over again.

At the table, Tony pulled out a chair and sat down next to Steve.

"Sorry about all that, Cap. It was always going to be a zoo while I was a big question mark in their minds. Figured you could use an assist."

Steve found himself smiling as he regained his own seat. "I appreciate it. You definitely have more experience than I do with this kind of thing."

"Yeah, there's no dancing girls here," Tony said. He quirked a smile. Then he lowered his voice even farther. "I'm going to make a statement and answer literally two questions. And then we're going to walk out no matter what. That's enough news for today. Sound good?"

"Perfect. Let me know if you need me to say anything," Steve said.

"I got this, but I appreciate the backup." Tony finally turned to the flashing cameras and shouting reporters. He stood up slowly, but held still and simply waited.

For a few minutes, the shouting continued, as did the pictures. But, when it became apparent that neither of them were going to speak or move and every picture would be the same as the last few, the crowd finally started to quiet. Steve watched, amazed, as Tony basically stared down the press with a knowing smirk and silence as his only weapons, and finally they settled, waiting for him to make a move.

"I know you have a lot of questions. I'm not here to answer all of them. I am here to make a statement as an Avenger, and to give Steve some backup. But if you start that frantic thing up again, you're all going to be sitting on the floor before you get to hear what I have to say, and don't think I won't do it."

Steve had seen a video of that particularly memorable post-Afghanistan press conference, and he had no idea why that worked as both a threat and an ice-breaker, but it did. People chuckled, and waited.

"I love that I get to say this publicly." Tony grinned and spread his arms dramatically. "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. But I want to thank everyone who went out of their way to try to memorialize me or celebrate me while I was out of touch. And for those who were happy I was gone, sucks to be you."

Steve just barely kept from snorting.

"Where were you?" somebody yelled in the crowd.

Tony's expression went cold until he was sure nobody else was going to interrupt.

"The fight with the Mandarin was a difficult one on multiple levels," he said finally. "I came out of it both worse and better than I'd been in a long time. There was healing that needed to happen, and I couldn't do that in the spotlight. So I made myself scarce. There's a nice little town a few thousand miles from here that put me up and gave me a chance to recuperate and make some decisions about the future."

Steve figured Queens could count as 'a few thousand miles away' if you went all the way around the globe first, but there was no world in which it was a 'little town.'

"When Hydra tried to take over SHIELD, I wasn't there for the fight. But it showed me that there's still a fight out there to keep people safe. Safe from literal Nazis, safe from people like the Mandarin who feed off fear, safe from whatever danger pops up that we haven't even imagined yet. Iron Man privatized world peace, but apparently it's too early for me to hang up the suit. So, until I feel like the world is really safe, I have agreed to step up and be a part of the Avengers team again."

Steve wondered how much of keeping the world safe was Tony's inherent altruism and how much had to do with the specific people Tony cherished. Ultimately, it didn't matter, but Steve thought maybe even Tony didn't know either way himself, either.

"Now. Since we've taken up a lot of the good captain's time with you wanting to know about me, I'll take exactly two questions. So make them good."

Steve watched as Tony ignored the frenzied and waving people, the shouted questions, and the flashing of pictures again. As much as they fought for his attention, Tony's stillness told them that he would give it only when he decided to and not a minute sooner. When he pointed at a reporter — Steve didn't know if the choice was random or deliberate — everyone else immediately quieted down to hear what they would ask.

"What really happened with the Mandarin that drove you into hiding?"

Steve knew that the press had never been aware of the arc reactor embedded in Tony's chest, and he figured Tony wasn't about to reveal it now, let alone anything about Pepper and Extremis. So he was curious about how Tony would answer as well.

"You already know that the Mandarin was a fake put together by Aldrich Killian. He preyed on our worst fears, using racism and xenophobia and religious intolerance to make us afraid when really we should have been scared of the white guy next door with a grudge. And it reminded me of when I got back from Afghanistan."

People were silent, hanging on his words.

"Back then, I realized that I was making weapons with no accountability to ensure they were used to protect the soldiers I made them for, and I had to put a stop to it. This time, I got played." He shrugged. "I bought into all that Mandarin crap the same as everybody else and I didn't look hard enough behind the curtain to see who the bad guy really was. That bad guy turned out to be our own Vice President and a rich playboy some of you called the second coming of me."

He scowled. "Also? That's an awful name to give anybody. Don't do that again."

Steve nodded even though nobody was looking at him.

"You know the saying 'when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail?' Well, when you're a superhero, every morally nuanced thing looks like a villain. I realized I wasn't asking enough questions about who I was willing to fight for or against. The truth about the Mandarin made it apparent that it would be too easy for me to get fooled again. I didn't want to find out I was playing somebody else's game and not my own."

Steve remembered on the helicarrier back during the Chitauri attack when Tony had snarled "We are not soldiers." For Steve, he was a soldier. He'd followed orders most of the time, and he hadn't really wanted to be the one making the call about who to fight. He knew who to fight, after all. Nazis were very worthy targets.

But the world was more complex now, and he wondered if Tony maybe had a point about not blindly following orders. It sure hadn't worked out for Steve and Nat with Hydra, after all.

Tony was still answering the question.

"So I decided I needed to take a break. Make sure that I was ready to take on the responsibility of doing my due diligence before I walked into another fight on the wrong side. I didn't want SI weapons used against American and allied soldiers. I couldn't let Iron Man be used, either."

There was a pause while everyone figured out that he was finished, and then the clamor for the second question went up. Tony waited, again, before pointing to someone in the front row.

"If Iron Man is acting as an Avenger now, how will you make sure that you're fighting on the right side? How can you be sure you won't make those mistakes again?"

Tony nodded. "That's a good question. And I'll tell you that I wasn't willing to sign onto the Avengers until I was pretty sure I could answer it."

Tony gestured towards Steve.

"First, the Avengers, while affiliated with what remains of SHIELD, don't answer to them directly anymore. We're an independent peacekeeping force under the command of Captain Steven Rogers. And Steve and I will work together to make sure that the Avengers are never used against anyone that doesn't present a clear and immediate danger to honest citizens and civilians."

Steve sat up just a bit straighter.

"Second, the truth is." Steve watched Tony take a breath. "We're going to do our best every time to make sure we only target the people we intend to target. But we're human, and we can make mistakes. No matter what I say up here, there is no way for anyone to guarantee that we won't get bad intel that only looks good."

Tony swallowed.

"I can promise you that we will do literally everything in our power to be right all the time. But you asked how I could be sure and the truth is that I can't. The police make mistakes like that all the time, arresting someone who looks a bit like the robber they're chasing. And sometimes those acts have violent, even fatal consequences."

Suddenly, Steve could see the weight on Tony's shoulders. Not just in the middle of this moment, but from all the fights he had battled alone. All the mistakes he carried back from before the days of Iron Man. Back to Obidiah Stane and weapons in the wrong hands. Steve's heart lurched in sympathy.

But he let Tony go without interrupting, because this was also Tony's fight, and the best support Steve could offer was to see it through with him without getting in the way.

"Someone very wise told me while I was in seclusion that you can't fix things before they happen. You have to stop them when they happen and fix them afterwards. And that's what I can promise to do."

Steve didn't know for sure, but even so, he was pretty darn certain that those words came from someone with the last name of Parker.

"So, in answer to your question. I may not be able to be sure we won't make mistakes. But I can absolutely tell you that we'll fix them if we do. We're called the Avengers for a reason. Well, a few of them, but the one that matters now is that we aren't here to do what Hydra tried to do. We aren't here to practice preemptive strikes. We're here to step in when the bad guys have made their actions and motives clear and deal with them then."

Steve couldn't stop himself. He stood and moved to plant himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Tony.

"You have my promise," he glanced at Tony, "our promise that we're going to do the best we can. What matters is that we're here to protect people. We're here to make this world safe for people like you, like your families and friends, to live freely and without fear. We're here to deal with the fights no one else can, like Hydra or the Chitauri. We're not a police force. We're…"

But he trailed off, realizing he didn't have the words he needed. However, apparently, Tony did.

"We're an asynchronous response team specializing in international and, apparently, intergalactic threat mitigation," he said. Tony took off his glasses and his face went strong and sure and confident. "And we're back."

Steve smiled, and the cameras flashed, and he knew that was the line — and the image — that would follow them.

He was more than okay with that.